Only one memory in the ten days that followed before her school
began ever stood out clearly and distinctly with Kate. That was
the morning of the day after she married George Holt. She saw
Nancy Ellen and Robert at the gate so she went out to speak with
them. Nancy Ellen was driving, she held the lines and the whip in
her hands. Kate in dull apathy wondered why they seemed so deeply
agitated. Both of them stared at her as if she might be a maniac.
"Is this thing in the morning paper true?" cried Nancy Ellen in a
high, shrill voice that made Kate start in wonder. She did not
take the trouble to evade by asking "what thing?" she merely made
assent with her head.
"You are married to that -- that --" Nancy Ellen choked until she
could not say what.
"It's TIME to stop, since I am married to him," said Kate,
gravely.
"You rushed in and married him without giving Robert time to find
out and tell you what everybody knows about him?" demanded Nancy
Ellen.
"I married him for what I knew about him myself," said Kate. "We
shall do very well."
"Do well!" cried Nancy. "Do well! You'll be hungry and in rags
the rest of your life!"
"Don't, Nancy Ellen, don't!" plead Robert. "This is Kate's
affair, wait until you hear what she has to say before you go
further."
"I don't care what she has to say!" cried Nancy Ellen. "I'm
saying my say right now. This is a disgrace to the whole Bates
family. We may not be much, but there isn't a lazy, gambling,
drunken loafer among us, and there won't be so far as I'm
concerned."
She glared at Kate who gazed at her in wonder.
"You really married this lout?" she demanded.
"I told you I was married," said Kate, patiently, for she saw that
Nancy Ellen was irresponsible with anger.
"You're going to live with him, you're going to stay in Walden to
live?" she cried.
"That is my plan at present," said Kate.
"Well, see that YOU STAY THERE," said Nancy Ellen. "You can't
bring that -- that creature to my house, and if you're going to be
his wife, you needn't come yourself. That's all I've got to say
to you, you shameless, crazy --"
"Nancy Ellen, you shall not!" cried Robert Gray, deftly slipping
the lines from her fingers, and starting the horse full speed.
Kate saw Nancy Ellen's head fall forward, and her hands lifted to
cover her face. She heard the deep, tearing sob that shook her,
and then they were gone. She did not know what to do, so she
stood still in the hot sunshine, trying to think; but her brain
refused to act at her will. When the heat became oppressive, she
turned back to the shade of a tree, sat down, and leaned against
it. There she got two things clear after a time. She had married
George Holt, there was nothing to do but make the best of it. But
Nancy Ellen had said that if she lived with him she should not
come to her home. Very well. She had to live with him, since she
had consented to marry him, so she was cut off from Robert and
Nancy Ellen. She was now a prodigal, indeed. And those things
Nancy Ellen had said -- she was wild with anger. She had been
misinformed. Those things could not be true.